


Life Itself

by FinallyAutumn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dancing merlin, Gen, Mini Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 20:51:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20552513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinallyAutumn/pseuds/FinallyAutumn
Summary: Even an oblivious Arthur truly believes that Merlin is life itself.





	Life Itself

**Author's Note:**

> "You are son of the earth, the sea, the sky, magic is the fabric of this world, and you were born of that magic. You are magic itself."

Another day in the Kingdom, another instance of Merlin stupidly, bravely jumping in front of Arthur, putting himself between the King and an enemy.  
Luckily not a magical enemy, but a terrifying one nonetheless. An ex-knight of the now-defunct kingdom of Cenred recognized them in the forest and ambushed Arthur specifically. Before being struck by Arthur's sword, the fallen knight threw Merlin off his horse, hit him with a mace that, Arthur thought, the servant very skillfully managed to partially avoid, only to be intentionally, cruelly run over by the disgraced warrior on his horse.  
Arthur had no problem in winning the duel, but he saw everything, and everything remained permanently impressed behind his eyelids: he saw Merlin already gripping his arm after being struck by the mace, and then his skull being hit, no stomped on by a horse's hoof, and it had been a terrible sight. He thought Merlin was dead even before he could reach to him.

...

It might be unusual for a King to visit his manservant recovered in the rooms of the court's physician, but Arthur thought it wouldn't be that strange to pay a courtesy visit to any man who tried to put themselves between an armed attacker and his king.  
Merlin looked worse than he thought he'd find him. Shirtless, one arm bandaged, probably covered by some tincture under the cloth, so luckily not broken, but his head was kept firm by two pieces of wood at the sides that clearly had been created for the purpose of not letting it roll left or right. Because Merlin was unconscious and constantly bleeding from his nose. Half of his face was covered by an alarming blue shade, including an eye, even though the eye wasn't swollen or cut. Arthur did not recognise the wound. Actually he couldn't even clearly see a wound. He didn't like this in the least. Next to his face Gaius caught the blood trickling down, using a cloth but very lightly, almost without touching the boy's face. When the physician turned to look at Arthur it was with a heavy expression on his face.

...

"I believe his skull has a hairline fracture: you can't see it dented, but it's there. And I'm not sure if he's just bleeding on the outside, or if there's also an internal bleeding." Arthur actually tried to pay attention instead of immediately looking for a joke on how Merlin always reveals himself to be indestructible. Gaius was talking of internal bleeding...so in his brain?  
"I think, sire, that our Merlin... - Gaius didn't even look at him:. he couldn't stop looking at Hunith's boy, the nephew under his guardianship - ... is... dancing on the fine line between life and death."  
Arthur translated again in his head. The man didn't give any solution, any 'unless', any 'let's hope...'. Nothing. Gaius was telling Arthur to prepare himself to lose Merlin.  
Arthur would've wanted to say something more solemn at that moment, but couldn't.  
"Gaius, if there's someone who can dance that dance that's Merlin. I bet he's dancing towards life right now. Come on, he's a small-village boy. I bet he knows every kind of dance. 'Cause you can't do much else in Ealdor, that's for sure. He'll make it."

...

Arthur called it. Even though Merlin had been unconscious for days, and when he woke up for a moment he seemed to speak another language, mostly to himself, and despite Gaius kicking everybody out of his rooms to leave Merlin alone, as if he was a desperate case, after a few weeks he was on his feet again. Arthur never asked how that was possible. 

...

On a dark, moonless night, four men were entering the citadel of the castle of Camelot.  
Arthur and three trusted knights had been on a recognition mission in foreign territory. That meant no insignia whatsoever with the dragon of the Pendragons. No red mantels, no dragon-emblazoned insignia on the horses, anonymous swords. Arthur was wearing a dark blue cloak. Almost the whole city was coated in silence, except for a house. This house was modest, long and narrow, in simple, sturdy stones, almost a glorified stable. But it didn't take much to see how it was built with care, precision, love. Warm, yellow light, stuttering music and laughter escaped from the windows, contrasting the cold night with something inviting, familiar, happy. Arthur stopped in front of one of the windows. "See? While we're keeping the kingdom safe the people dance!" but the king was being benevolent. "Is somebody getting married?" Sir Leon politely coughed: "Sire, they threw a party for Merlin, now that he's well. They thought he was really going to die this time." "Merlin?" Arthur paused a moment. "I didn't know he was so well loved in the outer citadel. Actually I didn't even know people knew him outside of the castle ." Sir Gwain murmured: "Well people came to know, in time, that he has a good heart. He is willing to help anyone, however he can." 

"Huh." Arthur took a step nearer the low window. He thought such a house could host about fifteen people, but he was wrong: there were more like thirty-five or forty. A small group of people to the far end, the narrower side, was intent on ruining musical instruments with a silly popular tune, while assorted people, who looked like farmers, children, working women, servants of the castle, were eating or drinking standing on their feet, along the walls, having preferred to make tables disappear somewhere so that at the center other guests could dance. There were two kinds of dancers: young boys and girls, and more hirsute, round-belly proud owners and definitely drunk men. And there he was: Merlin was looking at the guests, with a cup of untouched ale in his hand, a smile on his face, when somebody started pushing him at the centre of the only room of the house. They took his cup, he tried to disappear inside his shoulders, with that smirk, that you never knew if it was a polite smile or an all-knowing wise grin, but in the end he had to surrender and quickly joined one of those villagers' dances that look that simple but aren't. Merlin's feet, his long legs, immediately found the rhythm, and effortlessly inserted themselves in the group-dance. Arthur recognised it, but he never had the opportunity to learn it: it was one of those dances in which first every boy dances holding the hand of a girl, and then all of a sudden every dancer is creating a corridor, the arms up in the air creating arches, like the corridor in marble on the lower level of the castle of Camelot, through which other dancers have to run through. It seemed pretty easy, but it wasn't for the older drunk men, who just ran down the middle of the two lines, one of boys the other of girls, and laughing out loud just threw themselves on the wooden floor at the end of their run, thing that apparently was really fun to the other guests, certainly helped in finding amusement in the falls by alcohol. Then the most complicated thing: without missing a beat, every boy found again the hand of a girl, who was right there for them, flying on fast movements of their feet. Nobody bumped into each other, or had one girl too many.  
Merlin's feet were so quick that he looked like he weighed less. Never the expression 'light on his feet' fit better. The girls, too, were so fast dancing on their place that it looked like their long skirts were floating on air. The shoulders of the young men, often seen bent on the work, were now straight and graceful, just as graceful were their smiles at each other. Those boots Merlin always wore, his only pair, weren't just made to walk in large rooms in the castle, or rude boots to walk on the forest's paths, but to jump precisely in between rocks in the Valley of the Fallen Kings with dexterity, without breaking an ankle, and, evidently, to dance like a spirit at a party thrown by people who had to wake up and work the next morning. At the crack of dawn.  
Leon intervened again "It's a servants party. It would be odd for a king to participate. On the other hand... you are the king so you can do whatever you decide" Arthur didn't need to look at Leon to know that he had a little smile on his face, at this point he could tell from the tone of his voice. 

Arthur looked at Merlin again. Dancing effortlessly with a bright smile, surprisingly without tripping on his own stork- legs, as light as some of those unnatural creatures that populated the stories they narrated to Arthur only a few times when he was a child, before it was time to get a sword in his hands, creatures whose names and adventures indeed now he couldn't remember.  
Merlin wasn't dancing to music - he was dancing life itself as if it were music. 

"No, I would shift all the attention to myself. And we need to sleep anyway. Let's hope these people will be able to work tomorrow!" The last words elicited some scoffing from the knights. "Let's go."  
Arthur moved away from the yellow welcoming light of the house's windows, and in the blue and dark night cut across the central square of the citadel, his light steps and those of the knights the only noise on the cold stones.  
He strode near the equestrian statue, climbed up the stairs and disappeared into the dark, silent entrance of his castle.


End file.
